A couple important statistical studies have been released this month.
First, the DOJ’s Uniform Crime Report for 2007 was released. Basic take: violent crime is continuing a modest decline. Somewhere, James Q. Wilson is undoubtedly scribbling another editorial explaining why this shows that America is fortunate to be the world’s biggest
Second, every year NORML pulls out the marijuana crime stats from the Uniform Crime Report. In 2007, they note, there were 872,721 such arrests. That’s 7.6% higher than the 2006 numbers, and it represents the fifth straight year of rising marijuana arrests.
Third, the 2007 version of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which is one of the main national surveys of nationwide drug use, was released earlier this month. The NSDUH unfortunately is presented in a totally unwieldy and user-unfriendly format of page after page of unformatted text, but there are also a few useful graphs. Overall drug use appears to be basically stable or slightly declining, but there are interesting shifts in particular demographics:
The trend among young people is still basically toward using somewhat less marijuana, though boys showed an uptick.
On the other hand, folks over 50 are using more and more drugs.
By the way, this blog’s primary collection of American and international statistical studies on drug use, drug arrests , crime, incarceration and so on is here.
